Hello,

I just finished grading my students' essays. Oh vey. Here is a sentence from one of my student's essay. They were asked to do a semiotic reading on an object that represents American culture, and this particular student chose to write about hamburgers. So that's a pretty good object to write about. His one sentence that almost made me pee my pants was, "Hamburgers are very vertical." Oh yea? Well how do you get the ketchup, mustard, and pickles to stay put if your burgers are vertical? (He meant "versatile.")

But, on the other hand, I have a student who wrote the most eloquent essay, why America is like a quilt. I gave her a 97. So, I gave 6 As, 2 Bs, 7 Cs, and 2 Ds, an interesting spread of grades.

I'm getting ready to start a painting on canvas. I'm going to print one of my stories onto it, then wash over it with several layers of thinned oil paint. I've been thinking a lot about icons and how they are painted, how when an artist makes an icon of a saint, Mary, or Jesus, he or she "writes" the icon and doesn't paint it. It's a lovely metaphor, particularly when you explore the etymology of the word, "write," which means to etch or scratch. So, in is a very real sense, my stories are icons or paintings, etchings in canvas.

Anyway, I hope you all are well. The kids are great. Lily is reading and writing. Aaron is reading a lot, and Cyndi has a show this weekend at EMU. She is debuting her birds, the dead ones.

Good times all around!

Chad